The present disclosure relates to a sheet feeding cassette in which a recording medium such as a sheet is stored and that is used in image forming apparatuses such as digital copiers and laser printers, and an image forming apparatus including such a sheet feeding cassette.
Conventionally, there have been widely used sheet feeding cassettes in which sheets are stackedly stored and from which the sheets are fed to an image forming portion in the main body of an image forming apparatus during an image forming operation.
For example, there is known an image forming apparatus configured such that a window is provided in the front portion of a sheet feeding cassette and a two-color LED is disposed in the main body of the apparatus so that the two-color LED is visible through the window of the sheet feeding cassette with the sheet feeding cassette loaded in the main body of the apparatus. In such an image forming apparatus, the two-color LED emits yellow light when the sheet feeding cassette is running out of sheets, and red light when the sheet feeding cassette has run out of sheets, and this makes it possible to confirm the presence/absence of a sheet by seeing the two-color LED even with the sheet feeding cassette loaded in the main body of the apparatus.
Furthermore, there is known an image forming apparatus configured such that a viewing window is provided in a front portion of a sheet feeding tray (sheet feeding cassette), whereby it is possible to confirm the presence/absence of a sheet even with the sheet feeding tray loaded in the main body of the apparatus.